


sea of lovers losing time, lovers losing hope

by sapphire2309



Category: White Collar
Genre: Artist!Neal, Episode Tag, F/M, dystopian au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-19
Updated: 2014-05-17
Packaged: 2018-02-15 09:58:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2224782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphire2309/pseuds/sapphire2309
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fills for a drabble meme over at my lj.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Peter - Lost

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Turtlebaby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Turtlebaby/gifts), [embroiderama](https://archiveofourown.org/users/embroiderama/gifts), [Theatregirl7299](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theatregirl7299/gifts), [angel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tag to 5x13. Spoilers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For turtlebaby.

Things get lost. Like they get broken, or old, or worn.  
  
It's supposed to be an everyday occurrence. Or every week, or every month. Regardless, it's commonplace. Not unusual, not surprising.  
  
Peter's chilly mood implies otherwise.   
  
He's lost far too many things in the past few hours.   
  
Neal, walking away, losing the precious little faith he'd slowly gained for the justice system. Neal, walking away after flinging his faulty moral compass into the ashes of injustice and not even trying to borrow Peter's.  
  
Elizabeth, not lost so much as 230 miles and a phone call away. But Peter swears he can feel the miles separating them in his bones, and the phone is a deceptive bastard that will tell his ears that his wife is within arm's reach when all his eyes can see is grey plastic and a bed that looks two sizes too large without his wife in it.   
  
Neal, lost again, kidnapped. Plucked off the ground and thrust into some nondescript corner of the city, the country, or even the world. Peter won't be able to find him as easily as he'd like, because finding Neal is one thing, and finding the corner of the world that someone else chose for him is entirely another.  
  
Himself too, because he's pretty sure that with the weight of his worries, he should have broken through the floor of the house and drowned in earth or magma, but he's trudging around his empty house, feeling barely anything even when he crashes into the furniture or trips over Satchmo.  
  
Even Satchmo has taken to skulking around the house fretfully, somehow always choosing the ground right behind Peter's feet to curl up on.   
  
Peter isn't losing hope as much as he's already lost it.  
  
The seventh time he trips over Satchmo, instead of screaming in frustration or dusting himself off and trying to find himself in his own house, he sits up, leans against a sofa, grabs hold of an armful of Satch and holds on to him.  
  
His phone rings in his pocket. He doesn't pick it up. He's pretty positive it's a deceptive bastard.  
  
It rings out.  
  
He has about twelve seconds to breathe before it begins to ring again.  
  
Peter holds Satchmo with one arm and reaches for his phone with the other.  
  
It's El.   
  
He could just shut off the ringer and let it ring out again. But that's not fair to her.  
  
He taps the green button and rests the phone against his ear.  
  
"Hey, hon."  
  
There's a few beats of silence before El says, "Diana called."  
  
And it feels like she's right next to him as long as he doesn't open his eyes and he should probably be afraid because the follow-up to that statement is likely going to be 'Why didn't I hear from you?', but he's too busy being relatively okay to also be scared. He laughs a little, and even manages some surprise that the sound isn't ironic or resentful or, worse, devoid of all emotion. "It's good to hear your voice, hon," he says.  
  
"You too." She pauses. "Do you think you'll be able to find him?"  
  
The most difficult question. "I don't know. I can find Neal. I know Neal. But, unless he somehow gets out, it's not Neal we'll have to look for. And we have no idea who took him."  
  
They stop talking.  
  
He can hear her breathing. He can imagine her holding both his hands in hers or leaning against his shoulder. But he can't feel any of those things.  
  
"Talk to me, hon?" he asks.  
  
He hears Elizabeth sigh. He understands. He wouldn't know what words to put together to try to make him feel better, either.   
  
But then he hears this. "Magic exists. Who can doubt it, when there are rainbows and wildflowers, the music of the wind and the silence of the stars? Anyone-"  
  
"Hon." He doesn't bother with disguising the laughter in his voice.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"That is the prologue of a Nora Roberts novel. The one with the blue cover."  
  
"Would you prefer 'It was a dark and stormy night'? And I  _knew_  it! You read cheesy romance over my shoulder."  
  
He smiles and neither confirms nor denies. So she goes on reading.   
  
The light, easy words of the story calm him down and lull him to sleep right there, leaning against the couch with Satchmo under one arm.  
  
He doesn't notice when she hangs up carefully.  
  
He's better than okay.


	2. Peter/El+Neal - Birthday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set in an AU S5 (like the butler ep). References the pilot and S05E04 (the one with summers)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For aragarna

"Plans for the weekend?" Neal asked Elizabeth.  
  
Elizabeth smiled. "We're attending an art show at the DeArmitt on Saturday. It's Peter's monthly cultural event."  
  
 _Oh_ , Neal thought.  _She doesn't know_. "Monthly? And he hasn't negotiated?"  
  
"Of course not. Most of the time, he isn't even bored." Elizabeth raised an eyebrow and smiled in a way that subtly suggested exactly how the possibility of boredom was nixed.  
  
Neal nodded and grinned, then dropped the grin. "Even the day before his birthday?"  
  
Elizabeth stares at him. "I forgot," she says, disbelief colouring her tone. "I usually don't do that."  
  
"No, you don't. You're an event planner. You're organized."  
  
"Exactly. But I guess I was too busy planning other people's events to remember our own."  
  
Neal reached out to rest a hand on her shoulder. "You'll figure something out."  
  
Elizabeth blinks. " _Figure_  something  _out?_  It's in two days, Neal."   
  
He picks up his hat and makes a move for the door. Elizabeth grabs his arm. "Nope. You don't get to drop a bombshell like that and then just walk out."  
  
Neal's about to make his escape anyway when he sees El glaring at him. He sighs heavily, making sure his unwillingness has been appropriately conveyed, then plops down into the couch and says, "All right. Let's problem solve."  
  
Neal presses his lips together lightly, thinking. "He's been missing your mac and cheese. The one with all the cholesterol."   
  
"Okay, that's great! Mac and cheese for lunch."  
  
"No art show on the night before."  
  
"Definitely not. We can make it a ball game."  
  
"Better. And you are now invited to my place for dinner in the evening. SO that's one thing off your hands."  
  
"Neal..."  
  
"No fancy food, I promise. Just beer and pasta and fried chicken."  
  
"In your kitchen?"  
  
"My kitchen has survived Mozzie's rotted Korean skate fish. It'll survive this."  
  
 -:-   
  
Peter's more than happy to settle into the couch in trackpants and a T-shirt instead of wearing a penguin suit. He has a deviled ham sandwich at his elbow, at a sufficient distance from El's nose, his wife's feet tucked somewhere between his back and his butt, a game of baseball of the screen that he's only half watching because he's only half asleep.  
  
El is pretending to read a cheesy romance novel while actually keeping a close eye on the clock and quietly delighting in the absolute lack of cold feet when the second hand finally ticks past 12. She moves her feet under her own butt so she can lean forward, kiss him on the cheek and sing-song, "Happy birthday to you."  
  
Peter's eyes snap from unfocused and bleary to wide open, wondering what just happened as he touches his own cheek lightly with his fingertips. "Happy birthday to you?" he asks, blinking to clear his vision.  
  
El scrunches her nose and shakes her head. "Happy birthday to  _you_." She boops his nose lightly and gets a slightly confused but mostly happy smile.   
  
She can't resist reaching out and touching that smile with her lips, feeling it so close to her own skin, maybe borrowing some of that easy happiness he seems to have an unlimited stock of.  
  
It starts as a gentle reverence. It ends as a tug of war, leaves them breathless, insists that they come up for air when all the want to do is drown some more.  
  
They finally break the kiss, breathless, eyes locked on each others, unable to look anywhere else.  
  
Peter's the first to form a sentence. "Think we should take this upstairs?"  
  
"Probably."


	3. Neal - Pillow/Blanket Fort.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For angel.
> 
> Fills the square 'Pillow/Blanket Fort' on my cotton candy bingo card.
> 
> References [Broken Dreams, Silent Screams](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2225211)

Neal's vaguely annoyed.   
  
Just a few minutes ago, he'd poured himself a glass of wine (he'd filled it nearly to the top, that is _not_  how you drink wine). And then a few minutes after that, which is now, it was gone. And it didn't disappear into his stomach.   
  
He suspects Mozzie. But, knowing Mozzie, there's probably no evidence.  
  
He slips off the sofa (it's low, which is convenient for moments like these) so that he can lie down, almost flat, with his eyes closed, and pretends he's at a beach. Not the Cote D'azure.  
  
"Do you feel vulnerable? I feel vulnerable," Mozzie declares.  
  
"Vul-ne-ra-ble?" Neal laces the split syllables with mock disdain, but probably ends up sounding more amused than anything.  
  
"Yes." Mozzie's voice is too clear. "We need to build defenses."  
  
"Not in my living room."  
  
"Okay," Mozzie says easily.  
  
Neal sighs. There were about a dozen loopholes in that sentence.  
  
"We'll build it in the dining room. That's perfect, actually!" Mozzie's voice moves away from him.  
  
 _Here we go,_  Neal thinks. "Build what?"  
  
"A fort."  
  
"With what?"   
  
"These."   
  
Neal really doesn't want to look. Both because it involves abandoning the very comfortable illusion of a beach, and because he's not sure he wants to know. But he can only resist for so long. He cracks an eye open and cranes his neck, refusing to get up completely.  
  
Mozzie's holding up a pillow and a blanket.  
  
"Oh, for the love of Thoreau." It's a habit he picked up from Mozzie.   
  
"Thoreau once said, 'If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now, put the foundations under them.' "  
  
Now he wishes he didn't.  
  
Neal lets his head fall back to the sofa. "Foundations of pillows?"  
  
"It's a necessary protection."  
  
"And protection is a castle in the air?"  
  
"Honestly? Yes. It's-"  
  
"I'm coming."  
  
-:-  
  
About three hours later, the fort's finally close to the standards Mozzie set.   
  
It has a floating ceiling, which Neal managed by tying pieces of string to the lamp that used to be above his dining table but is now above his mattress, and using clothespins (he's not sure where he found those) attached to the end of the strings to hold up what's supposed to be his bedsheet.   
  
He's not entirely positive the lamp will hold, but he trusts that June bought electrical fittings that could sustain the weight of a bedsheet and a few clothespins, at the very least.  
  
The walls are chairs arranged at the ends of the mattress that allow the bedsheet to drape beautifully around the fort. Any gaps are plugged with pillows scavenged from around June's mansion, and there's a lot more pillows than usual at the head of the mattress - 'spares'. The entrance, guarded by pillows, faces the door for no particular reason, and Neal turns on the lamp that he tied the various pieces of string to so that the light filters through the bedsheet and softens before it enters their fort.  
  
And Moz has done nothing but sip at his wine.   
  
"You're a very bad fort building companion," Neal accuses, complete with accusing finger in Mozzie's face.  
  
"I'm better at directing. Pretty useless for muscle work."  
  
"And I'm a wrestler?" Neal falls onto the mattress and draws a blanket around himself. "So why did we - did  _I_  - just build a fort? And don't say you feel vulnerable."   
  
Mozzie opens his mouth, ready to grab the loophole.   
  
"Or protection."  
  
Mozzie grumbles. "You're a little too sober."  
  
Neal considers, his head tilted to the side. "That may be."   
  
Mozzie drums his fingers on a pillow as he considers the best way to go about this. "How do you feel? Inside the fort, I mean." At Neal's raised eyebrow, he adds, "Just answer."  
  
"Safe. Which doesn't make sense. It's not like a mass murderer is going to break the door open but then run away because we're huddled up in blankets."  
  
"Even so. Safe. Which... isn't something I had very often in Detroit."  
  
There's a silence as Neal realizes how much this must mean to Mozzie. Both the fort itself and that he chose Neal to build it (with).  
  
Moz breaks it, eventually. "You have to drink some more before I say another word. This isn't a conversation I want to have with you sober."

-:-

Neal blinks at him lazily from behind his army of fallen chessmen, a serene expression on his face. "Drunk enough?"  
  
Mozzie snorts. "Too drunk, maybe. Playing a drinking game with chess was a good idea."  
  
"For  _you_. You attacked my best man right in the beginning. Which means I had to drink. And then I had no way to recover, because drunk me versus perpetually sober you is an extremely unfair matching."  
  
"I call it strategy."  
  
"I call it cheating."  
  
"Same thing, often."  
  
Neal leans back into the pillows. "All right. Spill."  
  
Mozzie's reluctant. But he made an agreement.   
  
"It's one of the first things I did, with the money I made as the Dentist. My fort was more elaborate, of course-"  
  
"Don't mock my fort. I made it half drunk."  
  
"I'm stating a fact."  
  
"..."  
  
"..."  
  
"I sort of built a blanket fort. Once. Outside Ellen's door. Just me and my comforter. It was cold."  
  
"Okay, if we're going to discuss our childhoods, I need more wine."  
  
"I'll get another bottle."   
  
They spend the rest of the night exchanging sufficiently vague memories and making sure they're just drunk enough to remember as little as possible.  
  
-:-  
  
"Neal?" Peter calls.   
  
Neal turns over, half awake but refusing to admit it. "Go 'way."   
  
Peter raises his eyebrows in an imitation of awe. He isn't sure what's going on here, but he definitely doesn't like it.  
  
He ducks under the sheet that's draped over the chairs and tries to shake Neal awake. "What happened?"  
  
Neal opens his eyes for long enough to register that it's Peter who's trying to shake him awake, mumbles, "It was all Mozzie's idea," and yanks a pillow out of the pile so he can use it to block all possible light from his face.  
  
Peter pinches the bridge of his nose. He can already feel the migraine coming. "What was Mozzie's idea?"  
  
Neal sneaks a peek from underneath the pillow, determines that Peter isn't going to budge till he gets an answer, and reluctantly sits up and lists them out on his fingers, his tone eerily Mozzie-esque. "The excessive drinking - I normally wouldn't have, but Moz is a  _really_  good con when he's drunk - the fort- building - apparently, my house needs defenses - and what I  _think_  was the nostalgic recollection of childhood memories. All of it." Neal loks straight at him, eyes wide. "I think he was trying to cheer me up," he confides in his best 'it's a secret' voice.  
  
"By drinking with you?"  
  
Neal nods enthusiastically. "Allllll night long," he says with a grin. "I fell asleep," Neal squints at Peter's watch, "three hours ago. I think Moz left then."  
  
Peter decides that the best course of action is to sigh long and loud, and hide his face in his hands.   
  
Through the gaps in his interlocked fingers, he can see Neal watching him curiously.   
  
"Go back to sleep, Neal," he says, because he isn't capable of dealing with a loopy Neal right now.  
  
Neal gives him a smile that Peter thinks is a thank you, and then gives him a hug that was probably a part of the aforementioned thank you, except that it comes out of nowhere and leaves Peter blinking.  
  
Sometime during that hug, Neal falls asleep on Peter shoulder.  
  
Peter closes his eyes and tries hard not to sigh again. He gently dislodges Neal from his shoulder and lets him fall back onto the mattress.   
  
This is awful. He can't even say that Neal didn't listen.


	4. Neal - Cold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For embroiderama.

Sara lets herself into Neal's apartment. There's ten different sheets of quality paper stock crumpled and tossed onto the floor. An eleventh is on Neal's lap, supported by a copy of a very thick book on Impressionist art.  
  
"That's a lot of trashed attempts."  
  
Neal jumps. His butt loses its grip on the sofa and he slips to the floor. Thankfully, the sofa's low.   
  
Sara stares, disbelieving. "Am I particularly stealthy today or are you off your game?"  
  
"Off my game. I'm trying to sketch something, and it isn't coming out right."  
  
Sara carefully opens out one of the crumples attempts, and gasps. Even though he's using pencils, he's somehow managed to capture the details of a setting sun filtered through clouds so brilliantly, she has to stare.   
  
"This is beautiful, Neal."  
  
Neal wrinkles his nose. "It isn't perfect."  
  
"It doesn't get much more perfect than this." She smooths out the paper. "I want this framed," she says, eyes passing over every little detail, somehow finding beauty and meaning even in the abruptly halted skyline.  
  
She looks up just in time to catch a grimace on Neal's face.   
  
"Unbelievable," she says. "Neal Caffrey, confidence artist, isn't confident of his own work?"  
  
Neal winces. "Original art is a little touchy."  
  
Sara sits down next to him on the couch. "Explain." Her words are direct, as usual, but her tone is gentle, and he feels like he can tell her everything, and she won't judge him for it.  
  
"I've always been better at forging than making my own art. Even in grade school. You know how some sketchbooks have a drawing on the cover?"   
  
Sara nods.   
  
"I'd copy those drawings over and over on the pages of the book. In pencil, in crayon, in watercolour, in poster paint, sometimes charcoal if I could get my hands on it. I'd try limiting my palette - one time, I used only shades of blue, with the occasional grey or black."   
  
"Why didn't you just draw what you saw?"  
  
"I tried, believe me. I wanted more than anything to be brilliant at something that wasn't math. But... I just couldn't capture what I saw with my eyes as perfectly as I could replicate a two-dimensional image. It looked out of proportion, or shaky, or unlike itself."  
  
"It didn't have to be perfect."  
  
"I didn't know that." Neal paused and swallowed - his throat was dry and painful. "Eventually, I gained a sense of perspective, once I'd forged the Old Masters for long enough. After that, I tried to make original artwork. Different mediums, different styles. But every single time I looked at my own art, I just felt... cold. Emotionless. Like there was no substance to what I was painting."  
  
Sara brushes back a little of Neal's hair. He looked up from his latest attempt, his eyes finding hers. He looked tired. No, weary. He'd worked so hard on something, and then failed to meet his ridiculously high standards.  
  
"First off, I imagine that a decent sense of perspective for you is like virtuosity for us commoners. I don't believe for a second that you could make wonderful copies of art but weren't able to draw something that was pretty damn good. And second," she holds the crumpled paper out to him, "I don't know what you see when you look at that, but I see so much. And I definitely don't feel cold when I look at that. If anything, I'm awestruck."  
  
Neal holds the sheet im his hands. "Can I at least finish it before you get it framed?"  
  
"No," she says. "I want it just the way it is."  
  
He looks at her, disbelieving.   
  
"You too," she adds.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Don't change for me. If anything, change for yourself."  
  
Neal rolls his eyes very slightly. "That's intense."  
  
"It's true."  
  
He looks at her for a long minute before nodding stiffly.   
  
"And Neal?"  
  
"Hmm?"  
  
She slides the unbelievably thick volume on Impressionist art off his lap, leaving the paper behind. "I'm buying you a clipboard."


	5. Peter - Perfect Imperfections

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For theatregirl7299.

Neal's surprised at how often he looks at Peter as his ideal.   
  
Peter isn't a criminal, believes in the system, dislikes unnecessary grey areas and is in possession of a moral compass that hasn't yet been demagnetized by the multiple hits it's take. He's the anti-Neal, in a way. He's Neal's polar opposite.  
  
And yet, ever since he met Peter, a part of his mind immediately tries to figure out what Peter would do every time he's in a sticky situation. One memorable time, he'd even contemplated how Peter would deal with an incorrigible shoelace.  
  
Peter isn't someone Neal thought he'd choose as an ideal.  
  
But the fact of the matter is that Peter's better than him, smarter than him. And even though Peter's as flawed as the next person, he's still a far better human being than Neal is.   
  
Despite his imperfections, Peter's the perfect role model.  
  
Neal sometimes wishes that he could follow that example more often.


	6. Mozzie+Peter - Looking for Neal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For scarym1
> 
> Tag to 5x13.
> 
> The full prompt was 'Mozzie - as they search for Neal, mozzie ponders his complicated relationship with Peter.'

The day Mozzie always dreaded has arrived.  
  
He has a  _routine_. A set pattern to his days, laughably easy to detect and use against him. True, he changes the route he takes to the Burke townhouse every single night, carefully randomizes his visits to the delis that agree to serve him whole wheat toast, a soft boiled egg and half a grapefruit at an ungodly hour of night, and makes sure that nobody's following him when he's on foot.  
  
Even so, because anywhere he goes is now centered around the Burke house, he's sure that there are at least fifteen people recording his movements and monitoring his wine consumption.  
  
But it's a necessary evil. Neal's missing, the FBI refuses to believe it, and anyone who's searching for Neal is at the Burke house every single night. Which is exactly where Mozzie intends to be for as long as he can stay without being kicked out.  
  
He leans against a wall, makes contact with his various sources through phone calls, texts, and posts on Deep Web IRC chat rooms, and monitors everyone else's work. He watches Diana pore through the scant surveillance camera footage of Neal frame by frame, again and again, and makes sure he doesn't comment - she'll throw him out right when he really doesn't need to be thrown out. He watches Jones sift through various databases - recently reported crimes, Neal's former enemies, all the arrests Neal facilitated - in a vain hope for something, anything. He watches Peter pace and worry as no leads turn up and Neal is still nowhere to be found.  
  
He's always the last person to leave. The Diana retires reluctantly, rubbing at her eyes, Jones nearly falls asleep five times before finally packing up. He stays and watches as Peter puts the files in some sort of order.   
  
They end up in the backyard, Peter nursing a beer, Mozzie forcing the cheap swill that passes for wine in the Burke house down his throat.  
  
Peter falls asleep in his chair. Mozzie stays awake. He's become nocturnal of late. It makes the late nights easier on him.  
  
He really doesn't need to do this - stay till dawn, watch over Peter. Hell, he doesn't need to share his information with the Suits either. He'd probably have a better chance of success going it alone, untainted by an association with the FBI.  
  
But there's a certain comfort to be taken from the fact that he isn't the only one looking for Neal, that there are other people who are equally invested, that Neal wasn't entirely wrong about the place he has at the FBI, with Peter.  
  
This new routine that the Suit's forced him into is going to get him killed.   
  
But maybe, Mozzie thinks as he carefully rouses Peter at seven a.m. before disappearing into the dawn, just maybe, it could be worth it. For Neal, of course, but also for Peter and his peace of mind as he sleeps.


	7. Neal - Celestial Tremor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For kanarek13. 
> 
> Dystopian AU. I have absolutely no idea what is going on here, my brain was apparently on crack when I wrote this.

Neal's about to switch all the systems to autopilot when the screen begins blinking with an alert. Something about unusual cloud activity at random latitudes and longitudes across the span of the Earth.  
  
He sighs and puts on the white lab coat he only wears as a formality.   
  
This could only be Moz.  
  
-:-  
  
"You've been messing with the systems again." It's a statement, not a question.  
  
Moz doesn't have the decency to even look ashamed. "Yes! I used a random number generator that isn't quite random to determine latitude and longitude - it produces coordinates in the United States thrice as often as the rest of the world - and created cloudbursts that ended abruptly at those coordinates. What you do is-"  
  
"Explain it to me later. Could you please try it on the model and run it by me before causing celestial tremors across the Earth?"  
  
Moz looks deeply disappointed. "But it doesn't feel real on the model."  
  
Neal lets all his tiredness creep into his voice, knowing it'll earn him sympathy with Moz. "Yes. I know. It doesn't. Because it's a model. It's not supposed to feel real. It gives you an approximation of what would happen, and if something is going to go as horribly wrong as this, it lets you know, so you  _don't_  use that combination."   
  
"But-"  
  
"Moz. Celestial tremors do not occur without cause."  
  
"They do now!"  
  
"No, Moz, they don't. If you can't reverse it, at least terminate the operation and give me something plausible for the news outlets. And make it simple. A one-plus-one-equals-two kind of thing."  
  
"I'm transferring the commands to your system. Take a look at them."  
  
"All right, fine, just  _please_ -"  
  
"Sure." Moz turns back to the systems.  
  
Neal has the distinct feeling that this was the exact reaction Moz was aiming for.  
  
He sighs and returns to his office. All that's left is to switch the systems to autopilot and- Huh.  
  
Moz sent him the commands he used to initiate the tremors. And they had  _potential_...


End file.
